This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Tenants pessimistic about change at TCHC

Toronto Community Housing brass needs to “listen to people and do their jobs,” tenants say.

Marvett Moulton would like the new CEO of the TCHC to solve the bedbug and mould problems in her building near Birchmount and Eglinton.
(ALYSHAH HASHAM / TORONTO STAR)

Sham Singh says security and problem tenants are key issues for him. He has lived in the same TCHC building for 20 years. (ALYSHAH HASHAM / TORONTO STAR)

In the lobby of the TCHC apartment building in Scarborough near Birchmount and Eglinton, Lesley McDonald and her 10-year-old son Dominic say security should be the top priority of the new TCHC CEO.
(ALYSHAH HASHAM / TORONTO STAR)

Harold Seebaran has lived in a Scarborough TCHC building for 12 years and is not optimistic about a change in management improving building security.
(ALYSHAH HASHAM / TORONTO STAR)

Marvett Moulton strides down the green hallway, pointing out the bedbug corpses on a neighbour’s doorstep.

“Honestly, this place is a disaster,” she says of the Toronto Community Housing building near Birchmount Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E. where she has lived since 1999.

Inside the two-bedroom apartment she shares with her two daughters, 12 and 4, she wrenches back gauzy curtains to show the black fuzzy mould that frames the windows.

This is the tour she would like to give Toronto Community Housing’s new CEO.

Gene Jones resigned from the position Friday after two years following a scathing report by the ombudsman that said Jones and other senior executives at the city-owned housing agency flouted hiring rules, ignored conflicts of interest, gave managers sudden and unjustified raises, and fired people recklessly.

Article Continued Below

Moulton has little patience for the challenges the social housing provider faces, she has to live with the consequences.

“I don’t know why they don’t do anything. Things get worse and worse,” she says. The only explanation as she sees it is that the TCHC management just doesn’t care.

“They need to listen to people and do their jobs,” she says.

Lesley McDonald, a tenant in the same building for eight years, says her priority is better security.

Her 10-year-old son Dominic was recently assaulted in the elevator by a man suffering from a mental illness, and a woman was stabbed a few months ago, she says.

“There are children living here . . . the whole system needs to change,” she says.

Sarah Saastamoinen has only been living there three months, but she has little faith in the security response or the complaints process.

“I kind of feel that there is nothing that would be done,” she says after sharing her own concerns about safety and drugs in the building.

Security and problem tenants are also uppermost on the minds of Sham Singh and Harold Seebaran as they sit by the windows of the lobby of their building at Morningside and Lawrence Aves., catching some of the evening sun.

They are not optimistic that yet another change at the top will improve the condition of their building, one they say is notorious for both drugs and prostitution.

“They yap, yap, yap but nothing changes,” says Singh who has lived there for 20 years.

Seebaran, who has been there for 12 years, adds: “They don’t keep their promises.”

Bert Saptel, another long-time resident, does not mince his words.

The TCHC “is becoming a slum landlord,” he says. When his mother lived in the same building many years ago, they used to be able to leave the doors unlocked when stepping out. Now, he says, he has come home to see blood on the hallway walls.

“They have enough money, they have just misspent it,” Saptel says.

His advice to the new CEO: “when tenants call to complain, act on the first call. Don’t wait for the second, third, fourth call.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com